Four Minnesota teams with Olympic experience have qualified for the U.S. Olympic Trials, including East Metro-based women’s squad, Team Peterson.

Team Peterson qualified by being one of the top three U.S. teams in the world rankings, No. 31 overall. The comprises sisters Tabitha Peterson and Tara Peterson, who grew up in Burnsville and cut their teeth at the St. Paul Curling club, as well as Cory Thiesse, Vicky Persinger and Taylor Anderson-Heide.

The Trails are scheduled for Nov. 11-16 in Sioux Falls, S.D., and feature four men’s and four women’s teams. The winning men’s and women’s teams will represent the U.S. at the Olympic Qualification Event in British Columbia, Canada, Dec. 6-19, where they will compete for the final two berths in the 2026 Games.

Duluth-based Team Shuster earned its berth last spring by winning the 2024 U.S. men’s nationals and finishing in sixth at the 2024 world championships. Skip John Shuster was part of teams that won an Olympic gold medal in 2018 in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and a bronze medal in Torino, Italy, in 2006.

Team Peterson competed in the 2022 Beijing Games and in Pyeongchang, finishing sixth and eighth, respectively.

Also qualifying from Minnesota were men’s sides Team Dropkin (Duluth) and Team Dropkin (Chaska).

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White Bear Lake’s free, outdoor summer concert series Music on the Lawn returns this year at White Bear Lake United Methodist Church.

Organized by contemporary music director John Koziol, performances are on the first Sunday of each month — June through September. They will take place on an outdoor stage at 4 p.m. on the church’s north lawn at 1851 Birch Street. Performances will be indoors in cases of bad weather.

“The Music On the Lawn outdoor concert series has become an important part of our community outreach, a way to invite people to get to know more about us, and for us to celebrate music and the great outdoors together,” Koziol said.

On June 1, The Craig Clark Band will perform. On July 6, the event will feature Jennifer Grimm and Joe Cruz, a duo that plays jazz, R&B, and Latin standards. On Aug 3 Hitchville, a Midwest country band featuring Heidi Owens and Matt Kneefe, will play. And, on Sept. 7 the event will feature The Beatles Ensemble, a quintet of local musicians playing music by The Beatles.

For more information contact the church at office@wblumc.org or visit wblumc.org.

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By KATHY McCORMACK

A federal judge in Vermont on Wednesday released a Russian-born scientist and Harvard University researcher from immigration custody as she deals with a criminal charge of smuggling frog embryos into the United States.

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Colleagues and academics also testified on Kseniia Petrova’s behalf, saying she is doing valuable research to advance cures for cancer.

“It is excellent science,” Michael West, a scientist and entrepreneur in the biotech industry, testified on Petrova’s research papers. He said he does not know Petrova, but has become acquainted with her published work, citing one in which she explains that “by mapping embryonic development, novel ways of intervening in the biology of regeneration and aging.”

West said that Petrova’s medical research skills are highly sought after and that he himself would hire her “in a heartbeat.”

Petrova, 30, is currently in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service in Louisiana. She is expected to be brought to Massachusetts as early as Friday in preparation for a bail hearing next week on the smuggling charge, lawyers said in court.

Petrova had been vacationing in France, where she stopped at a lab specializing in splicing superfine sections of frog embryos and obtained a package of samples to be used for research.

As she passed through a U.S. Customs and Border Protection checkpoint in Boston Logan International Airport in February, Petrova was questioned about the samples. She told The Associated Press in an interview last month that she did not realize the items needed to be declared and was not trying to sneak anything into the country. After an interrogation, Petrova was told her visa was being canceled.

After being detained by immigration officials, she filed a petition in Vermont seeking her release. She was briefly detained in Vermont before she was brought to Louisiana.

Petrova was charged with smuggling earlier this month as U.S. District Judge Christina Reiss in Burlington set the hearing date on her petition. Reiss ruled Wednesday that the immigration officers’ actions were unlawful, that Petrova didn’t present a danger, and that the embryos were non-living, non-hazardous and “posed a threat to no one.”

Petrova’s lawyer, Gregory Romanovsky, had asked Reiss to issue an order to stop the possibility of ICE re-detaining her if she is also released from detention in Massachusetts.

Reiss said she was reluctant “to enjoin an executive agency from undertaking future actions which are uncertain” and would rely on U.S. Department of Justice attorney Jeffrey Hartman’s comments that the government has no intention at this time to re-arrest Petrova.

Romanovsky had said Customs and Border Protection officials had no legal basis for canceling Petrova’s visa and detaining her.

The Department of Homeland Security had said in a statement on the social media platform X that Petrova was detained after “lying to federal officers about carrying substances into the country.” They allege that messages on her phone “revealed she planned to smuggle the materials through customs without declaring them.”

Harvard had said in a statement that the university “continues to monitor the situation.”

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve officials agreed earlier this month to hold off on any interest-rate moves while they evaluated the impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on inflation, unemployment, and the broader economy.

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According to minutes from their May 6-7 meeting, released Wednesday, “almost all” of the 19 officials that participate in the Fed’s meetings on policy saw a risk that “inflation could prove to be more persistent than expected.” The policymakers showed greater concerns about higher inflation than rising unemployment, the minutes showed, a key reason they left rates unchanged.

Their decision flew in the face of Trump’s repeated calls to reduce borrowing costs because, in his view, there is “NO INFLATION.” The central bank cut its key rate three times last year to about 4.3%. Federal Reserve staff economists said during the meeting that inflation “remained elevated,” the minutes showed.

Trump’s tariffs have created a dilemma for the Fed because the duties could both raise inflation — which the Fed would typically fight with higher interest rates — and slow the economy and push up unemployment, which the central bank usually tries to counter with lower rates.

Officials “judged that downside risks to employment and … upside risks to inflation had risen, primarily reflecting the potential effects of tariff increases,” the minutes said.

Since the meeting, many officials have underscored that the Fed may have to wait for some time before making any further moves with interest rates.

Policymakers said there was “considerable uncertainty surrounding the evolution of trade policy” and its impacts on the economy, the minutes said.

“Taken together, (officials) saw the uncertainty about their economic outlooks as unusually elevated,” the minutes said.